


motion when privileged takes precedence of all others

by JoCarthage



Series: Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [3]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Discussion of gender inclusion policy, M/M, Smut, lead-in to smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:20:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27040366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: Michael comes home from volunteering on a city commission; Alex helps him relax.--This is a fic series where, after each day of phone banking for the democratic ticket in the US's 2020 presidential election, I will write a fic that's 10x the number of calls I made. So if I make 14 calls, I write and post a 140 word fic. If I make 27 calls, a 270 word fic. If you'd like to start phone banking, you can sign-up for a good, comprehensive training here: https://demvolctr.org. One of my friends from high school is one of the trainers. The training is 40 minutes, then 40 minutes of making practice calls, then 15 minutes of debrief.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970539
Comments: 36
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made 71 calls into North Carolina today, for a total of 185 calls so far. For the other people phone banking -- if you are open to sharing your number of calls/texts/postcards (either total, per week, per day) and if my style of writing is your jam, let me know what kind of fic you'd like in the comments or on tumblr (http://jocarthage.tumblr.com) and I'll try to write you a one-shot!
> 
> Also, I chaired a commission meeting tonight and decided to use my writing today to vent about it. This piece will have 2 chapters because I couldn't get it down to the right length in the time I had before bed.

"I'm just so fucking _pissed_!" Michael growled, yanking his black Stetson off his head as slipped the door to the cabin shut. He strode to the kitchen sink to get a class of water to cool down. Alex was on the rug, doing his PT in the midsummer heat, eyes soft as he watched him.

Normally, the sight of Alex wearing nothing but running shorts, sweat dripping down his torso from doing push-ups and planks and tricep dips on the couch was enough to distract Michael from just about anything. But tonight wasn't like any other night.

It was Commission night.

"Fucking -- _fucking_ \-- Commissioner Travers, he just --" and Michael stifled himself with the water glass as Alex hid his smirk. Michael had joined the Roswell Human Rights Commission after Isobel had pretty much forced him into it: _If you don't join, it will just be 11 old white hippie dudes, talking about how wonderful they were in the 1960s._

Michael set his glass carefully on the table, and Alex knew, he _knew_ that Michael was still pissed about whatever as-of-yet un-named horror Commissioner Travers had undertaken at the commission meeting tonight, the commission meeting that had kept Michael in town past sundown, made him miss their weeknight dinners. But he also knew that, now they were together and had been for years, Michael would never yell in the cabin; would never slam the door; would never smack the glass down just to see Alex flinch. Michael controlled every piece of the chaos inside of himself -- for himself, first and foremost, but also because he loved Alex.

And boy, had that been a thing to learn. Not just to hear, not just to parrot, but to _know_ in his _bones_ that he was loved, that Michael loved him. That, against all odds, against a river of pain between and among and flowing from them, they'd built a bridge right over. A place on dry land to stand with each other, come what may.

Commissioner Travers was a tiny whirlpool compared with the Charybdises they'd yanked each other out of. They'd weathered a dozen nights like this together, maybe more.

And so Alex stood-up, steady on his prosthetic, knowing his role was Greek Chorus tonight: "What did fucking Travers do tonight?"

"This _fucking asshole_ submitted an objection to the consideration of a question! To my _fucking motion!_ "

Alex closed his eyes, flipping through his internal card catalogue of Robert's Rules of Order: "He -- argued the question was improper for consideration and wanted it to be tabled forever?"

Michael nodded, jerky, jaw too tight to speak. Alex stepped closer, hands out, and Michael scrubbed his face with his hands before stepping into him.

"And tonight you were --"

Michael tucked his face against Alex's neck: "It was the final vote to to change all the gender check-boxes to gender free-response boxes on all city forms," Michael grumbled, "You know, because outdated binaries are the fucking _worst_. And even if gender is not so much a spectrum as a bimodal distribution, everyone breathing deserves to be recorded properly if they want to."

Alex drifted his hands up and down Michael's back as the man pressed in closer against him. "You're preaching to the choir."

Michael nodded, the motion softer. "He said it was an improper question, that gender was defined at the federal level and we had no right to go against it."

Michael's hands were on Alex's hips, thumbs tracing through the sweat running down his sides, like they knew what they wanted even while his brain was in high spin. Alex's hands slipped easily around to his front, working on his buttons as Michael sighed against him. He was wearing a starched black button-up shirt and slacks, since he'd found more of his motions passed when he performed middle class respectability than when he showed-up in his cowboy get-up.

Alex's voice was low, quiet as he finished the last button, tight around Michael's bobbing throat: "But you won the vote?"

He slid his thumbs so they were against Michael's voice-box so he could _feel_ the proud murmur when he said: "I won the vote; the man's been on an 11 person commission for 30 years, still doesn't know how to count to 6."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early Voting just opened today, and I spoke to a dozen democrats, many of whom had already voted. Most of the rest are voting within the next 7 days. Most don't have the option to vote by mail, as far as I could tell; but they'll be standing in socially distanced lines, insisting on their rights to vote.
> 
> Top quote from today's phone banking:  
> \- Chad (North Carolina), who said environmental and LGBTQ issues were his biggest voting concerns. I'd gasped in relief, told him he was the first person in 150 calls to say he cared about queer issues. He told me this story: "I walked into this IHOP last week with my partner, arm around his shoulders. And he left, went to pay the bill or something. And this older man came up to me, touched my arm. He says: 'It really means something, to me, to see you here with your partner.' Just. nice to know that can happen at the International House of Pancakes."
> 
> Chad is voting Saturday.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is def NSFW.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made 74 calls into North Carolina today, so the fic is 740 words, for a total of 259 calls so far. For the other people phone banking -- if you are open to sharing your number of calls/texts/postcards (either total, per week, per day) and if my style of writing is your jam, let me know what kind of fic you'd like in the comments or on tumblr (http://jocarthage.tumblr.com) and I'll try to write you a one-shot!

Michael wriggled a little closer as Alex slid his shirt off his shoulders, pausing while Michael's hands were tangled behind his back to press a kiss against his warm, dry collarbone. Michael hissed in a breath, shoulders flexing a little against the constraint, but content to wait for Alex to let him free.

"You wired the room?" Alex asked and watched carefully because -- _there_ , there it was, the first proud look of the night. Alex loved those look, the way they showed what it meant to Michael to finally have a voice, a choice in re-making this world that had so rarely given him a reason to love it.

Still, he ducked his head, like he needed to keep his victories to himself lest someone take them back: "Yeah, I made sure Chemers, Sendek, Richardson and Blake got a nice package of constituent mail in favor of the motion, thanks to our local GSA. I had them all out for coffee this week, showing off the new gender neutral restroom at Crashdown, making sure their votes weren't slipping. And," and now, joy of joys, a real smile, bright and shining where Alex could see it. Alex rewarded him by kissing it off his face before ducking between him and the kitchen counter to free his hands. Michael kept talking: "And I had a dozen kiddos come up and speak during public comment, about how much it meant to them that this 'wonderful commission' was going to be 'welcoming them into city services, programs, and processes.'" 

Alex finished freeing his wrists, wrapping his arms around Michael's bare waist, pressed tight against his back, tugging the man close against him -- and Michael went, body flexing and relaxing by inches and by feet.

Alex was slipping his hand down to undo Michael's belt when he murmured: "And fucking Travers still made a privileged objection, with all those kids watching?"

" _Fucking_ asshole," Michael spat, tension riding across his back. "I had to watch as their eyes got massive, as the staff secretary explained what was happening to them, as they got so _fucking_ scared they'd just outed themselves for _fucking_ nothing."

He sucked in a breath and Alex's hands stilled. Then he let it go and Alex unslipped the internal mechanism to his big belt buckle, slipping it free and carefully coiling it on the counter. 

He kept breathing easy as Alex turned him around, putting himself between Michael and the counter, bracing his hands on Michael's shoulders, feeling them soften under his touch.

Alex spoke, low and certain: "And then you won."

Michael closed his eyes, forcing his jaw to relax. "And then I won. 6 to 4, one abstaining. Jameson is a _fucking_ coward, but still. We won."

Alex pressed a kiss to Michael's eyelids, then braced himself on the countertop to lower himself to his knees, saying as he went: "And then you won. And all those queer kids got to see you, out and proud bisexual cowboy, _win_ , in front of Jameson and Carl-Dirckson and Olivier and _fucking_ Travers."

Michael steadied himself on the counter over Alex's head, the last of his anger seeping away from his face as he looked down at Alex.

"Yeah, and then we passed it, near unanimously." He swallowed, eyes shining with it. "The Human Rights Commission of Roswell, New Mexico formally recommended to the City Manager that all forms, policies, procedures and programs be fully inclusive of all people of all genders." He took a deep breath, shoulders rolling as Alex grinned up at him. "We _fucking_ won."

Alex flipped the button on his slacks as Michael's breath kicked up. The zipper was loud in the quiet of the cabin. Michael's left hand came down from the counter, resting softly on the side of Alex's face. 

"We won," Michael said, voice wondering, talking about so much more than parliamentary procedure or Robert's Rules of Order or even advancing gender rights in the rural Southwest.

Alex nudged his slacks down his hips, Michael sliding his thumb between the cotton and his skin, helping them off with a groan. Alex slipped a hand behind Michael's knees for balance, knowing they couldn't do this for long before his leg began to complain, but liking the position, the enclosure of it, with the cabinets at his back and Michael all around him.

Right before he took him into his mouth, Alex gave Michael a smirk: "We _fucking_ did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Top quote from today's phone banking:  
> \- Olivia's Mom: "We already voted [...] You don't have to worry about us, we've got it handled. Biden/Harris 2020."  
> \- A trans woman whose voter registration has her deadname, which meant I addressed her by her deadname, which meant I died inside when I figured out what I'd done wrong. She was much nicer about it than I would have been. After she let me know she was voting for Biden, we were discussing how she felt about Gov. Cooper, who by many accounts did not act like a good ally when it came to the anti-trans "bathroom bill." She was sharing why she was hesitant to support him, saying: "I had to go to the men's room at work because of the whole North Carolina bathroom bill thing."


End file.
